It was an extraordinary evening in San Francisco. Musicians who thrilled to the tango met to play together, to jam. And it was there that three of the members of what would become the quartet ...

Astor Piazzolla invited jazz into the world of tango, birthing a hybridized form of music that's outlived its creator; jazz, proving equally hospitable, opened its doors to Piazzolla and nuevo tango.

Botti couldn't have found a better mentor. Although his early musical direction was toward jazz, where the saxophone was the instrument featured more prominently, Piazzolla's music was an inescapable ...